


Age appropriate confusion

by Serinah



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Highschool AU, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Nicky is angry, Nicky is homophobic, Nicky's POV, Silly, age appropriate confusion, exchange students in the US, he doesn't knwo better, silly but not a comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26814592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serinah/pseuds/Serinah
Summary: A highschool AU where Nicky plays football (the European version) and Joe is decidedly not charming. Nope.Nicky's POV.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 43
Kudos: 42





	1. Scene One where Nicky plays ball

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be short scenes posted erratically. I hope you will enjoy. :)

Nicolo Di Genovo looked around the courtyard and immediately spotted the other exchange student who’d been drawing his gaze for the past week. From the distance, he couldn’t see the warm twinkle in his eyes, but his smiling mouth and constantly cheerful expression on his tanned face wasn’t something anyone could miss.

Nicky’s heartbeat stuttered and picked up; his palms were suddenly sweaty and he wanted to punch the short blond boy who was leaning into Joe’s space and explaining something emotionally. He looked stupid with all the hand-waving and gesticulating and Nicky had no idea what the hell Joe could be grinning about. They both looked like idiots.

“Hey, Nicky, whatcha starin’ at?”

Nicky tore his eyes away from the boy and onto his teammate Jimmy Copley.

“Nothing,” he muttered, then added loudly, “You coming?”

He set off as if it was his mate who’d been holding them back. Glancing at the clock in the tower, Nicky realized that they were, in fact, in a hurry, so they had a perfectly good excuse to break into a run.

The uncertain tingle in his bones would go away the moment he got on the pitch. It was nerves. A new school in a strange country — no wonder Nicky’s brain was all scrambled. Noticing that other people were attractive didn’t mean anything. Anyone could see that Joe was way above average. Everyone started smiling at him the moment he talked to them, right? Yeah, so it didn’t mean anything. Couldn’t.

Jimmy and he arrived at the pitch just as the coach started and Nicky jumped into the drills head-first, body ready, mind blank. God, there was nothing better than using his muscles, exerting himself, doing what was needed to be the best, to help your teammates and just… move. By the time they’d finished with the drills and started playing, Nicky had forgotten all his doubts and anxieties and that he needed to reply to his father’s email ASAP. He kicked and ran and dribbled. Then, he was assigned the position of a goalie and his eyes roamed.

Fuck.

There he was... again. Joe, sitting on the stands with the same stupid blond boy on his right, staring into his eyes—

The ball blindsided him from the left and smacked him in the face. Nicky went down.

Fantastic.

Going by the ‘Nicky you asshat’ someone yelled, it was a goal. Great.


	2. Scene Two where Nicky tries to do research

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here! More confused Nicky. Enjoy :D

Nicky needed a particular book and another one on a topic he wasn't sure about. The paper was due in two days but he already had notes, the internet, and two books. He found a promising tome and sat down to leaf it through. The quiet of the big library room was soothing. Nicky enjoyed the muffled sounds of the books being opened or slid back onto shelves, the occasional shuffle of feet or a beep of a laptop booting up…

And then came a screech, immediately silenced, hushed whispers, followed by a thump.

Nicky rolled his eyes and then froze when he heard that particular laughter he so easily recognised.

God, that laughter!

Why the hell did he have to come here tonight of all nights? Seriously. He wished he could just leave, but he needed to get ahead with this thing. So here he was. Sitting behind a bookshelf, his body ablaze with irritation because fucking Yusuf al-Kaysany was being merry about something — or someone, a nasty voice whispered in Nicky’s brain — and cazzo, how he envied the boy for feeling so free while Nicke felt so trapped. For almost a week Nicky had managed to avoid seeing him, but the other exchange students still kept mentioning Joe and what’s worse,  _ including _ him, so Nicky had been forced to spend more and more time with his football club.

Nicky closed his book which, as it turned out, he didn’t even need, and gathered his stuff to snea— leave the library. He’d find the rest of what he needed online or do an allnighter tomorrow. Or ask Jimmy to bring it later maybe? He had options.

Spying Joe and his three companions sitting at the end of the big table at the centre of the room, he decided to take the scenic route behind the shelves.

The short blond boy, who Nicky now knew was French, was there again, sitting far closer to Joe than was necessary, but Quynh had placed herself in Andy’s lap, so maybe they were having a double date or a foursome or something, Nicky thought uncharitably. A fucking LGTB meeting. Not that he had anything against gays, he didn’t. He just wasn’t one of them. Nicky glanced at them through the shelves again. The girls hadn’t been dating before the newbies got there, surely? The Vietnamese girl had always just trailed behind Andy (whose nationality was still a mystery to him) but Nicky had no idea how close they were. 

His jaw tense, Nicky walked quietly, head down, pretending not to see nor hear them. Almost there, almost there. He had to cross the last couple of meters out in the open, but maybe they wouldn’t—

“Psst! Nicky!” Quynh, the Vietnamese girl whispered, making him stop.

He turned around and glared.

“What?” she said far more loudly than necessary. “We are not friends anymore or what?”

All the students sitting around the table were grinning at him as if he was something funny to gawk at and Nicky hissed, “I’m busy. Leave me alone.”

“Aggressive,  _ non _ ?” Booker muttered with a scowl.

Nicky opened his mouth to say something clever to shut them up when Andy stage-whispered, “Sure we are friends with Nicky, he’s just a shy,  _ shy _ boy!”

She drawled the last words out mockingly and grinned at Nicky.

The pause stretched out, Nicky felt his face go hot and that was the moment that Joe winked at him.

Everything in Nicky seized up. Gritting out a sharp ‘shut up’, he whirled around only to bump into a door frame and drop one of his books.

He heard the group snicker, and the heat spreading up to the tips of his ears, Nicky left the book where it was and fled.


	3. Chapter 3 Scene Three where Nicky writes to his father

Nicky felt drained. A thorough report of all the progress he’d made in his business courses that his father had insisted on was a weekly affair, and as always, he finished with a short account of football. Not that his father cared about his sports-related exploits, but it was the excuse for choosing this particular school, so Nicky made sure to keep up the pretense. European football wasn’t something that most American high schools offered, after all, and the fact that it also had a great humanities program one could pick and choose their electives from, wasn’t something his father needed to know.

Nicky planned the weekly reports into his schedule like his father planned his kids because those emails took time, effort and made him anxious. Every time he finished one, he sighed in relief, only to start dreading about the reply the next day. Sometimes he got one, sometimes not. If it came, it would be on Wednesday morning, and if he was especially unlucky, he’d need to send a friendly or apologetic missive in reply the same day.

“Nicky, hey!” a familiar voice called from behind him, startling him out of his thoughts.

Turning around, Nicky looked at Joe, who'd just caught up with him near the lockers.

"I'm Joe, the exchange student from Egypt? We’re taking history together?"

The boy offered a vague wave and then, for some reason, held out a book.

Frowning, Nicky stared at it.

"You dropped this in the library yesterday?"

Oh.

"I don't need it," Nicky said coldly, burning with remembered humiliation.

"Oh." Joe's smile faltered for a second. "Well, I can take it back, no problem."

Nicky glanced back at the stupid book. Cazzo, it was the one Nicky did need! His fingers twitched.

"Or maybe I'll read it," Joe said, tucking it under his arm. "You taking ethics?"

"No!" Nicky denied impulsively, then corrected himself. "I mean, yes."

His eyes darting around for an escape, Nicky imagined for a minute just grabbing the book and running for it. God, that would be idiotic. His cheeks burned in embarrassment simply at thinking of doing such a thing. Blushing again. Brilliant.

"I'm in the art program," Joe went on in a friendly way, ignoring Nicky's less-than-stellar conversational skills. "You?"

"Business," Nicky replied, looking past Joe, thinking that he maybe should add something. "My father's idea," he admitted curtly.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Joe said. "I know how difficult fathers can be."

Nicky's gaze snapped back at the boy.

"I don't need your pity," he gritted out, and getting angry at himself, sped past his locker and towards the canteen. He was hungry, and there was no rule prohibiting taking his bookbag to the canteen, after all.


	4. Scene Four where Nicky storms off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so it's been a while bc I was having problems with this story. I added some tags, smoothed some of the details out of the previous chapters and I hope that Nicky is now a little bit less of an asshole. I've also wrote the last scene and will be posting it in a couple of days.  
> I really hope ppl will like. *sigh*
> 
> Thank you, Rubick, for cheering me on into writing and editing when I was feeling discouraged. You are wonderful!

Nicky was an idiot. Not that it was new information but in retrospect, he could clearly see that he'd overreacted. Joe would probably run straight to his friends and tell them all about the weird-ass Italian boy who… Yeah, no. Maybe he wouldn’t. But he certainly wouldn’t want to have anything to do with Nicky anymore.

Quietly doodling into his notebook, Nicky was sitting at the back of the class waiting for the lesson to start. Mr. Blechum was a laid back teacher and Nicky never needed to pay that much attention. History wasn’t difficult. What was difficult was that since al-Kaysany appeared, his gaze kept being torn toward the other side of the room, towards the door where the pretty boy with pretty locks was smiling. Today was no different. Nicky listened to the teacher, then there was a video, then Mr. Blechum was again waffing about something enthusiastically and when everybody burst into laughter, Nicky hastily copied them.

The lesson went on and every once in a while Booker leaned in and whispered something into Joe's ear.

“Mr. Di Genaova?” the teacher asked. “Anything the matter?”

“I…” Nicky looked at the two pieces in his hand. “I snapped my pencil,” he admitted.

Everyone was snickering as they turned back around to face the front of the class. Including Joe.

Nicky couldn’t lift his gaze. Again, Joe had seen him being an oaf that couldn’t apparently even take notes properly. Shit.

But then it got worse.

Mr. Blechum assigned a project done in pairs. And Nicky got Joe.

Fuck.

“You’ve got fifteen minutes to discuss your project and make preliminary plans. I’m here in case you run into any difficulties,” Mr. Blechum said.

If Nicky were anyone else, he’d just go to the teacher and said that he needed another partner. Anyone but al-Kaysani. Literally anyone. But Nicky wasn’t anyone else and he couldn’t stand out, not about this. First, Joe was the only MENA person in this group, and Blechum was radically into all sorts of human rights and equality movements, so he might want to talk to Nicky about racism or send him to a councillor, or ever worse — contact Nicky’s father. He wouldn’t—

“You okay?” Joe asked.

Nicky raised his eyes to concerned dark ones and promptly fell into them.

“Nicky?”

Nicky looked down and felt the skin on his face pulling taut and cold.

“Shit. Nicky? What’s wrong?” He turned towards the front of the class and opened his mouth as if to call for the teacher and Nicky grabbed his forearm.

“Don’t!” he whispered harshly. “I’m okay, don’t call him.”

“You sure?”

Nicky nodded. “It’s fine.”

They were silent for a bit. Nicky saw Joe opening his mouth but at Nicky’s head-shake he closed it.

Shit.

Joe was probably getting uncomfortable and Nicky was making it weird. He pulled his notebook closer to himself and ran his fingers over it. Took a deep breath—

“Look,” Joe cut in. “I know that for whatever reason you don’t really like me—”

“No.” Nicky raised his eyes back to Joe’s. Swallowed. Joe’s ‘hurt but trying to hide it’ demeanour was eating him alive, and Nicky knew that he needed to do something about that. “That’s not it,” he whispered. “I… I,” he tried saying ‘i like you’ in a way that would sound more friendly or manly or anything but what it was, but there was literally no way he could. He dropped his gaze. “I don’t hate you,” he said in the end, “not at all.”

He heard Joe say ‘oh’ just in the way he was afraid of.

“Fuck off,” he hissed, and with shaking fingers, swiped all his things into his bag.

Ignoring the teacher’s enquiry, he got up and stormed out of the class.


	5. Scene Five where Nicky wants to be friends

He was such an idiot. A colossal, fucking  _ imbecille _ !

God.

He would just work remotely. Send stuff to Joe via email. They could text if something felt urgent? He would need to apologise to Mr. Blechum though before he wrote to his father or something. And now he had lab. Nicky tried to remember if there was anything important about today's lesson but couldn't. He wished he could just go home. Instead, he was sitting in the library, pretending to read the stupid book that was making him feel embarrassed now for the humiliation of dropping it yesterday. It was a stationary copy not to be checked out. Fuck. The one he'd dropped hadn't been returned so it was probably still with Joe.

“Nicky?”

Nicky startled and whirled around, but before he could say anything spiteful, Joe raised his hands in a peace out gesture.

“Not here for a fight! Just… I’m sorry, okay?”

And wasn’t that humiliating. His cheeks heating, Nicky turned around towards his book.

“Leave me alone!” he said harshly and got up to storm away again.

“No, no, Nicky, please!”

There was a hand on his shoulder but Nicky shook it off.

“I like you too, okay?” Joe said just behind him, as he was rushing after Nicky.

“What?” Astonished, Nicky stopped and gaped at Joe.

“Yeah,” Joe said, shrugging bashfully.

His long, artistic fingers scratched the back of his head, and he grinned goofily.

Blinking like a fool, Nicky’s mouth also started to stretch out towards his ears. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Joe replied quietly.

A warm bubble of happiness started ballooning in Nicky's chest and his hand on the strap of his backpack tightened. He stepped closer to Joe and tilted his face down to look into the dark, mesmerizing eyes. Joe was a few inches shorter and that was making Nicky feel things. God, Joes was pret—

Nicky stepped back, clamped his eyes shut.

He wasn't supposed to think that way about boys, he wasn’t. He wouldn’t.

“Nicky?”

Nicky opened his eyes and sighed. It was this or nothing. Now or never.

“I want to be friends,” he said in a rush.

Joe’s lips twitched. “Okay.” He blinked, smiled, and Nicky felt as if the sun had come out again.

“Maybe come by after the training tomorrow, we’ll hang out?” Nicky said, still feeling awkward.

Hang out?  _ Hang out? _ What was he? Twelve?

“Sure.” Joe’s smile just widened.

There was a pause and Nicky started to get a bad feeling of not getting something.

“You do realize tomorrow’s the fourteenth?” Joe asked after a bit.

Nicky frowned.

“Valentine’s,” Joe explained.

Nicky’s heart stuttered and sped off like a mad rabbit. “What?” His mouth was suddenly dry.

“Valentines,” Joe repeated, still smiling as if there was nothing weird in being asked to hang out for Valentines. “You know, the ultimate date night?”

“We can hang out as friends though, right?” Nicky got out in a high voice, sounding almost panicky.

Joe snorted. “Sure. Friends.”

Relief making him feel dizzy, Nicky smiled.

Friends. He could be friends with Joe.

"This will be the best Valentine's," Joe said, nodding decisively. "I've got ideas."

His eyes were shining with mischief and mystery, and Nicky couldn't wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! Finished! :)  
> Thank you for reading! <3


End file.
